Advent begins in darkness. We light one candle to express our
hope in
the growing light of Christmas. But Advent begins by recognizing
the darkness
in our world, with the hope and expectation of a new day.

These days it's not always easy to begin Advent in darkness. Our
stores
want to start Christmas earlier and earlier each year. The biggest
shopping
day for Christmas was Friday already. And now there are even
pre-Christmas
sales, and pre-pre-Christmas sales in the weeks before
Thanksgiving. So
many of the stores and malls have been lit up with there
decorations for
weeks already. The brightness and light of our modern Christmas
celebration
is all around us, so it is difficult to begin Advent in darkness
anymore.

Some in the church have said, 'If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.'
They've
suggested that we should start Advent earlier, and then start our
Christmas
season earlier and stretch it out longer to climax on Christmas
Eve. Maybe
that's not such a bad idea.

But there is one problem with all these approaches to the right
timing
for Advent and Christmas. No matter what we do outwardly,
with all
our decorations and shopping and festivities, it still may not
coincide
with how we feel and experience Christmas inwardly. Even
with all
the trappings, it is difficult to come by the Christmas Spirit
yet. And
some folks may never quite get there this year. Perhaps they have
recently
suffered a terrible loss; perhaps their relationships are in
turmoil, on
the brink of falling apart. Yes, there will be many people, as
there are
every year, who are in too much pain to ever feel the Christmas
Spirit.
Their lives are in darkness right now, and it will be difficult
for the
light to penetrate.

So it is good, perhaps, that Advent at least begins in darkness.
Even
for those of us whose personal lives aren't darkened by turmoil or
tribulation,
we can begin in darkness with those who are. And even for those of
us whose
personal lives are relatively bright right now, it remains true
that we
look around us and can see much darkness in our world.

So Advent begins in darkness. And our first reading in Advent
from the
book of Isaiah is a cry from the darkness: (Isaiah 64:1) "O that
you would
tear open the heavens and come down!" It is the anguished outburst
of a
desperate people, having exhausted all possible human
alternatives, having
given up on polite, respectfully restrained prayers to God. They
cry, "Tear
open the heavens and come down!" Earlier in this passage Isaiah
calls out,
(Isaiah 63:15) "Look down from heaven and see, from your holy and
glorious
habitation. Where are your zeal and your might? The yearning of
your heart
and your compassion? They are withheld from me." In other words,
"Where
are you, God? Where are you?" Isaiah prays the prayer of a people
who long
for God, yet cannot see or hear God, people for whom God is
absent.

Do any of you know what that feels like? Have you ever prayed,
but felt
like you were only talking to yourself? Have you ever stood by the
bed
of a loved one in pain and prayed to God for help, but felt like
God was
far away? Have you known Isaiah's prayer: 'God, where are you?
Tear open
the heavens and come down! Please come!' This is the Advent
prayer, as
we begin in darkness. "Come, Lord Jesus, come."

Will Christmas bring an answer to that prayer? We celebrate God's
coming
in Jesus on Christmas. But will he come again this year? Will he
come to
those who sit in darkness who yearn to see a great light?

At Christmas we do celebrate that Christ has already come, that a
great
light has come to shine in the darkness and the darkness cannot
overcome
it. But how does that make a difference to those who sit in
darkness now?

The difference it can make, I think, is this: Since Christ has
already
come, we now can know where to look. More specifically, we
can know
to look in the unexpected places. Think of the Christmas story:
the savior
of the world, the king of creation, born to two poor people in a
barn in
tiny Bethlehem. Is that where you would expect God to come? Not
really,
right? And it never really changes with this Jesus. The Pharisees
expected
such a great teacher to be with them all the time. But
they continually
had to look for him among the tax collectors and sinners, the sick
and
outcast. Finally, it even ended with this Jesus hanging on a
cross, the
very last place anyone would have expected to find God coming into
this
world. So when we pray the prayer, "Where are you God?" perhaps
what we
need is to remind ourselves of where to look. Perhaps when we
can't find
God, it's because we look in the wrong places.

I'd like to share a brief passage about looking for and finding
God.
It's from a book with a good Advent title, Night, for it
describes
one of the darkest places ever known on this earth: the Auschwitz
death
camp. Elie Wiesel is a Nobel Prize winning author who survived
Auschwitz
and recorded many of his experiences in this book. If ever there
has been
a place on earth where we are justified to cry out, "Where are
you, God?!"
Auschwitz is the place. One particularly well-known passage from
this book
asks just this question. It describes the Nazis hanging a young
boy:

The SS seemed more preoccupied, more disturbed than
usual.
To hang a young boy in front of thousands of spectators was no
light matter.
The head of the camp read the verdict. All eyes were on the child.
He was
lividly pale, almost calm, biting his lips. The gallows threw its
shadow
over him. This time the camp executioner refused to act as
executioner.
Three SS replaced him.

The victims mounted together onto the chairs. The three necks
were placed
at the same moment within the nooses. "Long live Liberty!" cried
the two
adults. But the child was silent.

"Where is God? Where is He?" someone behind me asked.

At a sign from the head of the camp, the three chairs tipped
over.

Total silence throughout the camp. On the horizon, the sun was
setting.
"Bare your heads!" yelled the head of the camp. His voice was
raucous.
We were weeping. "Cover your heads!"

Then the march past began. The two adults were no longer alive.
But
the third rope was still moving; being so light, the child was
still alive...

For more than half an hour he stayed there, struggling between
life
and death, dying in slow agony under our eyes. And we had to
look him full
in the face. He was still alive when I passed in front of him.
Behind me
I heard the same man asking: "Where is God now?"

And I hear a voice within me answer him: "Were is he? Here He
is - He
is hanging here on this gallows. . . " (Night,
Bantam Books, 1982, pp. 61-62.)

This is the Christian answer to the question "Where is God?", isn't
it?
When we are looking for God to tear open the heavens and come, we
begin
by looking at the one who was hanged on the cross for our sins.
Jesus turns
the whole question of suffering around. When we are suffering, or
when
someone close to us is suffering, we are often moved to ask "Where
is God?"
But with Jesus, suffering becomes the answer, not the reason for the
question.
In Jesus we begin to see that the answer to "Where is God?" is
precisely
this: God is with those who suffer. That's where God is. In Jesus we
learn
where to look for God.

And this is where our salvation itself lies: learning where to
find
God. For I think that the problem of humankind has been to so
often look
for God in the wrong places. We have tended to look for God among
the powerful
and mighty. 'It's someone with great power, who will get us out of
this
mess!' is what we are usually tempted to think. But, no, it's
those people
of great power who generally represent our human powers that are
responsible
for the suffering in the first place. We have tended to look for
the solution
to suffering among the mighty who help to wield the power that
brings us
suffering.

In Jesus, we learn to see differently. When we look to the cross,
we
learn to see that God is with those who suffer, and has been all
along.
As long as there is suffering in this world, that is where God
will be.
And, when we learn to find God there and go to be with God there,
then
won't the suffering finally end? If everyone learns to find God
and to
be with God among the suffering, then who will be left to cause
the suffering?
Then, when we all learn where to find God and where to be with
God, then
will that Christmas prophecy of Isaiah come to fulfillment: "The
people
who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in
a land
of deep darkness--on them light has shined. For unto us a child is
born;
authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful
Counselor,
Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace" (Isaiah 9:2,6)
Amen